ACF International Network
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Action Against Hunger has developed its water and sanitation expertise over nearly three decades of field work, advancing a number of solutions for populations at risk from water insecurity.
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Central to the targeting of malnutrition, Action Against Hunger extends water and sanitation improvements to communities with little or no access to proper sources.
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Action Against Hunger's programs are sustainable because of our commitment to community participation—to build local capacity and harnesses a population's energy and resources.
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Though strategies may vary, our food security interventions all share a common goal: to fight hunger by preserving and strengthening livelihoods in a sustainable and contextual manner.
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Action Against Hunger’s innovative food security programs offer a broad range of solutions for generating income, boosting food production, and strengthening livelihoods.
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Our comprehensive approach to hunger involves extending water and sanitation services to communities faced with water scarcity, unsafe drinking water, and inadequate sanitation.
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Action Against Hunger occupies a unique place among international organizations: our expertise encompasses emergency relief, longer-term development, and the terrain in between.
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We have developed an effective method to treat acute malnutrition that includes field-tested protocols and nutritional products backed by an international scientific advisory committee.
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Action Against Hunger helps rehabilitate and restock public health infrastructure, fields mobile health clinics, and trains local medical personnel on preventative and diagnostic care.
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Our comprehensive programs address the linkages between disease and malnutrition by coordinating with local expertise and strengthening existing public health systems.
ACF International Map
Where We Work

Update Against Hunger - May 3, 2006
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Field Notes: 

Our First Priority: Staff Safety

Dear Action Against Hunger Team Member,

Due to deteriorating security, we've pulled several of our expatriates out of Chad leaving two who can ensure the continuity of the mission. We also pulled national staff members from bases back to their home areas in Chad. All programs were placed on standby except the nutritional program, a lifesaving and therefore essential activity. This is made possible by national staff members who volunteered to stay. We'll continue to support them all. When we put a base or mission's activities on standby, our lifesaving programs are preserved for as long as possible. But if the safety of our remaining teammates in Chad appears to be compromised we'll evacuate them, too. Alternatively, the area's conflict could abate, in which case we'd quickly return to business as usual.

From my experience in the field, our teams always have an acute sense of the relative risk they face every day, and we pay scrupulous attention to their reports of local conditions so we can respond appropriately. We're listening accordingly to reports from Chad. We're always concerned with danger not only to our teammates but to our beneficiaries too who are sometimes inadvertently placed at risk during the provision of aid. We want to save the world from hunger, but to do so, first we must ensure the well-being of our beneficiaries and our teams.

Cathy Skoula
Executive Director,
Action Against Hunger (ACF)

New from US Headquarter: 

The Easiest Way to Help Us

Last month, volunteers attended two public programs relevant to our fieldwork. In the lobby before and after the sessions, they handed out literature to attendees who wanted to know more about us. The volunteers also gathered e-mail addresses from everyone who was interested.

In New York, two volunteers attended a discussion titled "The Best Hope for Peace in Darfur," sponsored by Amnesty International, whose panelists included a United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice, a Darfur refugee, and a columnist from the New York Times

In Washington, we were similarly represented when a coalition of George Washington and Georgetown University students hosted a presentation by the director of a Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize film, God Grew Tired of Us, accompanied by one of the film's central figures. The film recounts the experiences of the Lost Boys of Sudan who were forced to leave their families at the outbreak of civil war in 1987, many of them as young as six years old. Together, they walked more than 1,000 miles to Ethiopia and Kenya in search of safe refugee camps.

We're always grateful for the assistance of anyone who is interested in our work and who wishes to distribute literature about us at events such as these. To obtain the appropriate literature, please contact our volunteer coordinator at mailto:volunteer@actionagainsthunger.org

News from the field: 

Global Media Coverage for ACF

In the past month, our work has popped up in an unusual assortment of media.

  • The International Crisis Group, a non-governmental analysis and advocacy organization, issued a report entitled: "Central Asia: What Role for the European Union?" It cites our nutritional surveys in Tajikistan as devastating evidence that the world's tepid response to hunger in the country hasn't helped yet.
  • ZAPLECZE, a Polish photography magazine, featured a striking layout of photographs taken at our nutritional centers in Southern Sudan, accompanied by a page explaining our work.
  • Latina, a U.S. publication that celebrates Hispanic women, profiled Yvette Gonzalez, our former Head of Mission in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Creatively embellishing Yvette's experience, Latina wrote that she was "[d]odging bullets while trying to help starving people in the Democratic Republic of Congo."
Though we're not yet a household name in the U.S., our identity and influence are increasing gratifyingly.
Person Profile: 

Profile Amal Bennai

Back from Darfurand Ready for More

From the moment Amal Bennaim learned about Action Against Hunger, she wanted to work for us. In fact, she wanted a career in humanitarian nutrition since she was three years old and announced to her family, "I want to feed all the little hungry children."

Born in London to parents from Morocco, Amal studied nutrition and dietetics at King's College London. While still in college, she raised money for a summer-long project that took her to Guatemala where she researched sources of Vitamin A for Guatemalans and the health benefits of breast milk. She later presented a paper about her work in Vienna, where she met an Action Against Hunger staffer who mentioned that Professor Michael Golden had developed our F-100 restorative milk formula and was on our Scientific Committee. Amal was familiar with his work and knew immediately that she and we were a match.

After graduation, she worked as a resident in five hospitals around England, none of which appealed to her, then she applied for a position with us but got no response. So Amal went to work in a heart-and-lung hospital in London, monitoring and adjusting the nutrition of patients before and after their procedures. All the while, she wanted to travel and get to know people from other cultures, so she paid her own way to Honduras to work at a nutrition center and orphanage where she set up nutrition and education programs and monitored the health of local children. She stayed four months and decided, "This is totally my field."

Amal returned to England to work as a temporary dietitian in a variety of locations, meanwhile applying twice more for a position with Action Against Hunger. Last July, we finally responded and sent her as a nutritionist to Niger, where she set up Supplementary Feeding Centers and home care programs. At one point, she reports, she was overseeing 27 home care programs with as many as 700 children in each, and three teams to monitor everyone. Her programs treated 17,000 children in six months.

Now Amal is volunteering at our New York headquarters, developing materials that our missions can use to set up emergency education programs in the field so that teams won't have to begin each program from scratch. She wants to spend the summer in the field conducting a nutritional survey for us, then in September, she plans to earn a master's degree in public health and nutrition in London. After that? More work for Action Against Hunger, she hopes. She's still eager to feed all the little hungry children.